THE IRISH CHURCH. 235 



acquired property, but still numerically inconsiderable as compared 

 with the native Irish Catholics. 



Secondly. It may be urged against the Protestant Irish church, that 

 it is a DESERTER from the principles of Catholicism, as well as an 

 usurper of its rights. However true the position, that the Protestant 

 episcopal church is the more in accordance with primitive Christianity, 

 and therefore, in fact, the older church of the two ; this is a purely 

 theological position, too controversial, and dating too far back to in- 

 fluence national conviction, or affect the question at issue between 

 England and Ireland. In the popular and equitable view, the Pro- 

 testant of the established church is a dissenter from the Catholic 

 church. The Protestant has, in the judgment of the world at large, 

 deserted from the faith of his ancestors, and rebelled against the spi- 

 ritual authority of him whom those ancestors regarded as God's re- 

 presentative upon earth. Beyond all question, the Irish Catholics are 

 justified in laying thus much to the charge of episcopalian as well as 

 other Protestants; and with much more justice, and consistency too, 

 can they anathematize us for our apostacy, than we can censure any 

 of our dissenting brethren for seceding from our establishment. 



Thirdly. Who shall deny the Irish Catholics the right of protesting 

 against the appropriation of Catholic endowments to the uses of a Pro- 

 testant church? Our laws may have made it illegal to withhold from 

 Protestants what was intended for Catholic uses ; but it is not, there- 

 fore, unjust or ungenerous in Catholics to complain of laws they are 

 forced to obey. Nay more, no reflecting and candid man, of what- 

 ever religious creed, would deny that it is a grossly tyrannous stretch 

 of power, by which the Irish Catholics are deprived of all share in 

 the ecclesiastical funds of their country. 



Fourthly. We English of the established church, who are scanda- 

 lized at dissent from ourselves, and talk ^censoriously of heretics and 

 schismatics, must not, in common fairness, deny the Catholics the 

 right of maintaining the fundamental principles of that church, from 

 which we are ourselves dissenters. The fundamental tenet of Catho- 

 licism is that, beyond the pale of the church, naught is religiously 

 worthy. Without this tenet the Catholic system is theoretically 

 null and void. The charities of the Catholics of Ireland are not 

 coerced by this absurd tenet. Probably but a very small portion of 

 even the most unlettered of them could feel or act towards Pro- 

 testants as this tenet might be supposed to suggest; just as but few 

 Protestants relish or act upon the dogmas of " the Athanasian creed." 

 But, since this tenet is inseparable from the Catholic system, and is 

 not more offensive and hurtful than our own Athanasian tenets, if 

 the Catholic religion is to be tolerated at all, this item of its theory 

 must be tolerated along with it : we must, together with the now con- 

 stitutional admission that Catholics are as trustworthy subjects as our- 

 selves, admit, that they are justified in maintaining all the peculiar 

 tenets of their system ; and amongst them the following, viz. that 

 Protestants are in a damnable predicament, and that Protestant parsons 

 and churches are abominations in a Christian land. Whilst mere theo- 

 retic dogmas do not excite Catholics to civil outrages against Pro- 



